Pampas Glass - an improvisation.

 When I heard about this assignment I smiled to myself - improvisation, it's what I do all of the time.  I have an idea, I don't have the bits needed to carry it out, so I improvise and change this for that, and that for this, until I have managed to come up with something.

So, I wanted to force myself to work a little differently.  

Based on this quote, especially the last bit.....

"Something that is improvised, in particular a piece of music, drama, etc. created spontaneously or without preparation."

I decided I would 'just do it', go for it, roll with the flow.  

I wanted to create a piece of Pampas Grass just out of stuff I had laying about.

First I started with a piece of found driftwood. I thought it was a nice shape to represent the Pampas stalk, once I had chopped the end off to make it straight.

Next I drilled holes in it.  First I started drilling holes the size of the glass rods I was planning to use, but very quickly realised that if I had holes that large (8-10mm) I wouldn't be able to fit many rods in and I wanted it to be quite full.  So I swapped to a 3mm drill pieces and drilled about 80 holes with that.... at a downward slant.

Have you ever drilled found driftwood?  It really is quite nasty.  The smell of dead fish, salt and rotting seaweed is not the nicest aroma in the world!

Once the holes were drilled I needed to sort out some glass.

I found a pile of glass rods in a nice creamy ivory colour which I thought would work well.

And the next step was to go and melt them on the torch.  I had two things to do, one was to round of the end so it looked a bit more natural  (and also wouldn't be sharp to work with) and the other was to melt the other end and pull it into a point so it would fit into my smaller drill holes.

So, off to the torch I went, melted my ends and then melted the centre so I could pull the two ends apart to make a thin section.  I then snipped this section to create two pieces which would stick into my wood.

Then all I had left to do was to assemble it.

I found a couple of old plant pots, stuck my driftwood in them and packed them out with little pebbles from my garden so the wood wouldn't move.

Then I started to stick in my glass rods.

But it some became apparent that I had totally underestimated how much glass I would need, I had way more holes than glass - and none of that particular glass left, so I had to improvise and use a different colour to make some more.

I wasn't too happy about this at first, until I had put a couple of the new colour in place, which was like a transparent straw colour, and realised it worked rather well.

And that is my improvised, finished piece of Pampas Grass..... although it looks more like a cactus.

If I had of had more glass I might have worked further down the stem with it, sadly I have nothing left in that kind of shade.  I think it works quite well in a way though.

I am calling it my Pampas Glass!

Planning my IMPROVISATION assignment.

 I have had a couple of ideas floating around about how to present my Improvisation assignment,

My topic is 'Pampas' and I did a little research on the grass which led me to two ideas.

The first idea was to show both the prettiness and the destructiveness of the Pampas plant by depicting it in two very different ways within on piece.

I thought I would paint on glass, which would then be fused in the kiln.  There would be two pieces of glass, the first one showing the Pampas as we usually see it, and the second showing the Pampas on fire.

These pieces of glass would sit in a piece of driftwood,  one in front of the other with the fire piece at the back.

The second idea was to actually try and recreate a piece of Pampas grass, using a piece I had found on a dog walk....

I also found a piece of driftwood on the beach that I thought I could use a a stalk

So I scribbled a little sketch to plan out what I thought I might be able to do.

I think the idea that I am going to go with is the one to reproduce the piece of Pampas grass using other materials..... driftwood and glass.

Might call it Pampas Glass   :)

Improvisation

 Today we had a presentation  on improvisation..... the presentation certainly got me thinking about things, and although I feel I improvise quite a lot anyway within my work, it has given me the idea to push myself into using other mediums within glass work.  

I teamed up with Doreen to swap scopes, and the idea that she gave me to work with was "Pampas".

First of all I had to do some research on this grass as, although I have a rough idea of what it is, I haven't really come across it or used it or really taken any notice about it in the past.

So, from research I have found out that not everyone loves Pampas grass. It is considered a weed, a pest.  In South Africa it is considered a category one weed and must not be grown. It is banned from sale and propagation.

That puts a slightly different slant on how pretty this grass is.

It is a fire hazard too, with reports of it catching alight from the sunshine and burning out of control. 

Many gardeners use fire as a way of controlling the growth of the grass, which can also be a risky business, it obviously needs to be done in a very controlled and safety conscious way.

Now I have to come up with a plan of how I can use this information to translate into a piece of glass...

I might try to show the prettiness of the plant, but also try to depict some destruction as well, maybe within separate pieces that work together but also work on their own.

Watch this space....